Dr David Adams, joint lead researcher at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, said: “It has been known for a while that a person with red hair has an increased likelihood of developing skin cancer, but this is the first time that the gene has been proven to be associated with skin cancers with more mutations.

“Unexpectedly, we also showed that people with only a single copy of the gene variant still have a much higher number of tumour mutations than the rest of the population. This is one of the first examples of a common genetic profile having a large impact on a cancer genome and could help better identify people at higher risk of developing skin cancer.”

Dr Julie Sharp, head of health and patient information at Cancer Research UK, hailed the research as “important”.

She said it also “underlines that it isn’t just people with red hair who need to protect themselves from too much sun”.

“People who tend to burn rather than tan, or who have fair skin, hair or eyes, or who have freckles or moles are also at higher risk,” she said.

“For all of us the best way to protect skin when the sun is strong is to spend time in the shade between 11am and 3pm, and to cover up with a t-shirt, hat and sunglasses.

“And sunscreen helps protect the parts you can’t cover; use one with at least SPF15 and 4 or more stars, put on plenty​ and reapply regularly.”